Al-Maliki said: "The Baghdad security plan is now ready and we will depend on our armed forces to implement it with multinational forces behind them. Field leaders will ask for help from these forces if needed."

Iraqi forces will begin a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood assault on fighters in the capital this weekend, as a first step in the new White House strategy to contain violence in the capital.

The first details of the plan emerged on Friday, a day after George Bush, the US president, and al-Maliki spoke for nearly two hours by video conference.

Bush is expected to outline more of the strategy in the coming days.

Violence

On Saturday, Iraqi police clashed with armed men in the area near Haifa Street, a traditional Sunni area in central Baghdad, when they went to investigate a report that 27 bodies had been found.

A source at Baghdad police headquarters said local police called in reinforcements, but when they arrived, they came under fire.

Meanwhile, police said two car bombs killed four civilians in separate attacks in the Iraqi capital on Saturday.

A parked car exploded near a fuel station in the southern neighbourhood of Dora at midday, killing three people and wounding four others.

Another car bomb targeted the convoy of a high-ranking Iraqi police officer in the central Baghdad neighbourhood of Karradah, killing a pedestrian and wounding six.

Ali al-Yassiri, head of emergency police in the Iraqi capital, survived the attack on his convoy, while three of his bodyguards were hurt.